“Yes.”
“Who was on the battlements?”
“Raphael.”
“We heard him talking to you.”
“You couldn’t, he spoke Hebrew.”
“So do I, in a manner of speaking, something Judas didn’t know. Raphael said he was doing the corridor rounds. What’s that mean?”
“What it sounds like. He patrols corridors and stairs.”
“And the others, where are they?”
“Braun is usually in the kitchen on the ground floor. He does all the cooking. There’s a small lift to serve the other floors. That’s how he gets food to the women.”
“And the rest?”
“The colonel is usually in his study.”
“Which leaves Aaron and Moshe.”
Arnold hesitated. “Aaron and Moshe?”
Dillon screwed the silencer on the end of the Browning into Arnold’s neck.
“I’m not sure. There’s a billiards room by the library, that’s off the main hall. Sometimes they play.”
“Anywhere else?”
“The recreation room on the first floor. Satellite television, that kind of thing.”
Dillon nodded. “All right, so to get to the stairs up to each floor, we need the main hall?”
“Yes, you take the stairs from there.”
“Good.” Dillon turned him round. “Then show us the way.”
They moved along the terrace through the rain and Arnold opened an iron-studded door leading the way into a corridor. There was a light on, another oaken door at the end.
Dillon pushed up his goggles. “Where are we?”
“The entrance hall is through there.”
“Then lead on.”
Arnold reached the door, turned the iron-ringed handle and opened it, revealing a massive hall beyond. There was a flagged floor, a log fire in an open fireplace, an array of flags hanging from poles above the fireplace, the ceiling vaulted. Why he did what he did next was probably a mystery to himself as much as anyone, for he swung the door back behind him and ran across the hall.
“Colonel!” he screamed. “Intruders! Dillon!”
Dillon pulled back the door and shot him in the spine. A moment later, a door opened on the opposite side of the hall, and Aaron and Moshe appeared carrying handguns. Dillon was aware of the billiard table in the room behind them and fired twice to keep their heads down. Blake backed him with a quick burst from his Uzi that sent them into the billiard room, slamming the door.
“Here we go!” Dillon cried and started up the great stone stairway fast, Blake following.
They reached the first landing and began to climb further. As they came out on the second landing, Raphael appeared at the far end, clutching his M16. He raised it to fire and Blake loosed off another wild burst that drove Raphael diving for cover.
“Come on!” Dillon said and made for the third floor and Blake went after him.
In his study, reading a book and drinking cognac, Daniel Levy was instantly alert at the first sound of gunfire. He opened his desk drawer, took out a Beretta which he put in the pocket of his jump suit, and picked up an M16 that was leaning against the wall. His study was on the first floor, and as he emerged, Aaron and Moshe appeared at the end of the corridor, having come up the back stairs. They were each holding AK assault rifles.
“What is it?” Levy demanded.
“We heard Arnold shouting in the hall. He called: Intruders. Dillon. Then we heard gunfire in the hall, went out and saw him dying, two men in black jump suits, night goggles, just like the SAS on a bad night in Belfast,” Aaron said.
“Dillon?” Levy stood there staring at them. “It can’t be. Dillon’s dead.” And then some kind of comprehension dawned. “Berger, knocked down in London. Dillon – it must have been.” There was gunfire on the next floor. “Come on!” he said. “The bastard’s going for the women,” and he ran for the back stairs.
Dillon and Blake hit the third floor fast and moved headlong, pausing at the door to the room in which Dillon had been prisoner. He kicked it again and again.
“Hannah, it’s Sean.” He turned to Blake. “The countess is two doors down. Do it, Blake.”
He heard Hannah call, “Sean, is that you?”
“Stand back, I’m blowing the door.”
He took a door charge from one of his packs, pushing it into the keyhole of the oak door, Blake doing the same further along the corridor. Dillon twisted the timer cap and stood to one side. Four seconds was all it took. The door rocked and splintered and he was into the room.
Hannah ran to meet him and actually flung her arms about his neck. “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.” The second door charge exploded and she said, “What’s that?”
“Blake Johnson getting to Marie de Brissac.” He took his Browning from its holster. “Take this, we’re not out of the woods yet and there’s only the two of us.”
David Braun had been sleeping in the small bedroom at the end of the third-floor corridor. He awoke, confused and frightened at the first sounds of gunfire, and dressed hurriedly. He picked up an Armalite which he kept by the bed, opened the door, and stepped out.
The first thing he saw was Blake leading Marie out of her room, Dillon and Hannah Bernstein beyond. He raised the Armalite and hesitated, aware of the danger to Marie. Dillon saw him, cried a warning, and pulled the pin on a stun grenade and rolled it down the corridor. Braun jumped into a nearby alcove, and the stun grenade went straight through the archway at the end of the corridor and fell down the stairwell, exploding.
At the same moment, Levy, Aaron, and Moshe appeared at the other end of the corridor and started firing. Dillon pushed Hannah back into her room and Blake and Marie de Brissac followed.
There was silence, then Raphael appeared at the stairhead behind Braun. He called, “Raphael here, Colonel, with David.”
“Good,” Levy shouted back. “I’ve got Aaron and Moshe here. There’s only two of them and they aren’t going anywhere. You hear that, Dillon?”
“If you say so,” Dillon replied. “I wasn’t going anywhere in Washington, but here I am.” He rolled another stun grenade along the corridor and jumped back.
Levy had already opened the door of the last room in the corridor and shouted, “Inside!” to Aaron and Moshe. They made the shelter of the room, and as he slammed the door the stun grenade exploded on the landing.
Levy opened the door. “Not too good, old buddy. Like I said, you aren’t going anywhere. Hey, when you get time you’ve got to tell me about Washington. That must have been real slick.”
He fired several bursts from his M16, clipping the wall by the broken door of what had been Hannah’s room. Dillon poked the Uzi out one-handed, sprayed along the corridor one way and then the other.
He turned to Blake, who said, “Now what do we do?”
Dillon put down his Uzi and pulled the coil of rope over his head. “A good job I brought this along, it’s our one chance. Everybody get in the bathroom.” Marie de Brissac looked dazed and Dillon said, “Move it, for God’s sake. Hannah, we’re running out of time.”
Hannah urged Marie before her into the bathroom. Blake followed. Dillon fired another burst from his Uzi into the corridor, then put it down again, took a quarter block of Semtex from one of his pouches, jammed it on the windowsill against the bars, and rammed in a two-second pencil timer.
He ran and flung himself flat on his face on the floor beside the bed. The sound of the explosion seemed to make the room sway, and when he looked up through drifting smoke the window, the bars, and some of the surrounding stonework had disappeared, leaving a jagged hole.
Dillon ran to peer out and Blake joined him, the two women at his shoulder. “Forty feet down to the terrace,” Dillon said. “You lower the countess and Hannah one by one, then tie one end to the bed and go down yourself. I’ll hold the fort and follow when I can.”
Blake didn’t hesitate, simply uncoiled the rope and tied a large loop in the end. As Dillon picked up his Uzi and reloaded, Hannah grabbed his arm.